Christians in a northern Indian state where they face increased persecution have urged police to protect them and their churches as they begin the seven-week-long Lent season of prayers and fasting. “We have sought police protection as we fear possible attacks from miscreants during Lenten season,” said Pastor Jitendra Singh, president of United Christian Committee of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh state. The ecumenical body submitted a memorandum to the city’s police commissioner on March 1. The Lent season begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5, and culminates at the Easter Vigil on April 19. “We have in the past witnessed attacks on Christians during Lenten prayer services and don’t want a repeat of the same this year,” Singh told on March 4. Uttar Pradesh, which is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has seen a rise in attacks against Christians and their institutions in the past few years. “Our prayer gatherings are falsely portrayed as religious conversion activity to target us,” Singh lamented. Even house prayers are attacked by Hindu activists in many places across Uttar Pradesh, and Christians, including pastors, are arrested under false charges of conversion, he added. Currently, close to 100 Christians are languishing in different jails in the state after they were accused of violating the provisions of the draconian anti-conversion law that criminalizes religious conversion through fraudulent means. The state has the most rigorous anti-conversion law that has a provision for life imprisonment or 20 years in prison if found guilty of being involved in religious conversion activities.